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The Toronto Land Registry Office has been chosen by the Director of Titles to participate in a pilot project starting Monday January 29, 2018. TLA members are invited to access certain services at the LRO via a new centralized email address: LROclientSubmit@ontario.ca.

At this new email address, the LRO will be accepting all (i) PIN corrections; (ii) pre-approvals of complex documents; and (iii) general inquiries that lawyers would otherwise have put to Land Registry Office staff by directly calling or visiting the Land Registry Office. The following documents provide all of the details:

RSA SecurID is an authentication technology that uses both hardware and software based Tokens. The Tokens generate an authentication code at fixed intervals which is then used to provide secure login access. Teraview® on the Web will be using an RSA token value along with your Teraview® password when you Sign Electronic Instruments for completeness / release.

You will be able to request either a physical token or a soft token for your smart phone for each Teraview® User in your account and should make these arrangements before the move to Teraview® on the Web.

Roll out begins in Toronto on February 12, 2018.

Update re Solicitor Statement 9185

On January 4th, the FOLA Real Estate Committee met with representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Law Society, LawPRO and OBA, in an attempt to clarify the Ministry’s position on Statement 9185 and to express its concerns with it. The Ministry confirmed its intent that the Statement is to be completed in all Transfers. However, the Ministry is taking concerns regarding the Statement under advisement. In the meantime, the Ministry has confirmed that Statement 9185 is not a mandatory statement in Teraview® and that Transfers will be registered without completion of this Statement. Until the concerns with respect to the Statement are resolved, the Ministry has advised that it will not be auditing Transfers to confirm completion of the Statement and will not be imposing any penalties for non-completion.

Statement 9185 reads as follows:

SOLICITOR STATEMENT (To be completed when the declarant is an individual licensed to practice law in the province of Ontario): I have fulfilled my obligations as the solicitor of [INSERT NAME OF TRANSFEREE(S)] for the conveyance, in relation to the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Rules of Professional Conduct and its By-Laws, as well as the Land Transfer Tax Act, and have reviewed with the transferee(s) their obligations under the Land Transfer Tax Act that are material to the conveyance described in this document.

The Committee expressed concerns regarding the following:

The instructions that the Statement is to be completed when the declarant is a licensed Ontario lawyer is inconsistent with the Ministry’s position that the Statement is required in every Transfer registered in Ontario.

The requirement for lawyers to confirm that they are adhering to their professional obligations each time a Transfer is registered contradicts the Ministry’s stated recognition that lawyers “are held to high ethical standards and are required to follow LSUC’s Rules of Professional Conduct and its By-Laws, through professional regulation by the LSUC” and appears to be usurping the role of the Law Society in the professional regulation of lawyers.

The obligations of lawyers under the LTTA are not clearly stated, yet the Statement requires lawyers to confirm that they have been fulfilled.

An update will be provided on this issue once a further response from the Ministry has been received.

Letter to Lenders re First Canadian Title

The County of Carleton Law Association's Real Estate Committee has prepared the attached letter that it would like to send to lenders outlining the concerns raised by First Canadian Title's practises.

The Committee is seeking input from real estate lawyers about the letter before sending. Please send your comments to TLA by email to: info@tlaonline.ca. TLA will forward all comments to the CCLA Real Estate Committee.

Standardized Real Estate Closing Documents

The TLA is pleased to endorse the use of Standardized Real Estate Closing Documents (see below). The Working Group on Lawyers and Real Estate initiated this project, which has also been endorsed by FOLA (Federation of Ontario Law Associations), in their mandate is to improve the business of law for the private bar. These documents, if used regularly and appropriately, are a step toward that goal.

The benefits of these documents will only reach the practicing bar if they are widely distributed and their usage promoted. We encourage our members to share this information with solicitors who are not TLA members.

We now have confirmation from Do Process that the documents will be added to the Conveyancer software and that LawyerDoneDeal has added the documents to RealtiPLUS. Users will have to ensure they import the package.

One eastern Ontario solicitor has begun adding the following language to initial communications:

Our office uses Ontario's Standardized Closing Documents for all residential resale transactions where the agreement between the parties is based on an OREA contract. These documents have recently received the unanimous approval of all 46 County law associations in Ontario and are endorsed by the Federation of Ontario Law Associations and the Lawyers Working Group. The rationale document supporting the use of these documents can be found at http://www.lawyersworkinggroup.com/ and the use of standardized documents for these transactions has been strongly encouraged by LawPro and the current Director of Titles. Should you wish to amend these standardized documents or if you are requesting additional documents from the Vendor we will require confirmation as to the contractual obligation of the Vendor in this transaction to provide such things.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in promoting this initiative.